P.A.Kane

 As the summer faded so did the crowds at Canalside. Jackson and Lexi, despite the lack of activity and the encroaching winter still liked going down there to sit on the benches and look out at the rapidly cooling waters of Lake Erie. Occasionally, they would touch hands and maybe even share a kiss, but mostly they looked at the water, enjoying its peaceful, rhythmic movement.      With the Thanksgiving holiday only a week away, they fell into a conversation about their dysfunctional families and the disasters that seemed to always accompany the holiday when a man sitting on the next bench asked them for the time. He was bundled up pretty good and had a modest but identifiable British accent.

West Seneca, N.Y.—For cash payments local author P.A. Kane will write you into his new novel, Leaving Jackson Wolf. With the crowdfunding phenomenon sweeping the country Kane thinks this would be a fun way for people to participate in the writing process and for him to increase his profile and revenue stream. Kane is open to any ideas people have for placement in the coming of age novel due out this fall. You can be a swarthy guy standing on a corner. You can make a pass at Jackson’s brainy best friend McDougal. You can have a beer at a corner bar with Jackson’s alcoholic father, Mickey. Or, you can have Jackson beat the shit out of you—if that’s your pleasure. Anything you want, just as long as you have cash money.

      I t’s the second day of freshman year and I’m outside my locked homeroom waiting for my teacher. There’s an assembly down in the auditorium that we piss-ant freshman are not invited to. Waiting with me in the hallway are three white guys and one black guy. I don’t know any of them. They come from places beyond my South Buffalo world, especially the tall stringy black guy. So, standing there in the mostly empty hallway, I hear one of the white guys, who is kind of beefy, say something to the black guy. I don’t catch it exactly, but know it includes the word “boy” because of the way tall stringy black guy responds: “Who the fuck you calling boy , motherfucker?” as he lays five or six, quick as lightning, open handed slaps about this white kid’s head. Not sure at the offense of the word boy , I’m stunned by his response and wait for the white kid to come back at him, but he just stands there, humiliated, with visible hand prints all over his face. The tall stri...